EPTCommunity Feedback Update - May 4 - Page 10
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wiNgiAN
17 Posts
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
On May 09 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: I've heard Beastyqt say this a lot of times and i agree totally. First of all being turtly and passive has little to do with race or composition choice. It's about style. Thorzain was known to play very passive turtly gameplay with bio. In TvZ, you can be extremely turtly if you want to with MMMtanks into ghost/liberators. I've seen a lot of top masters/low GM zerg players play lings banes mutas without ever attacking, just taking bases and spreading creep. However, metas crystalise into turtly and passive play when some late game units or compositions grant a massive advantage over the opponent. Historically, that has always been zerg or protoss. It's been very rare to see eras when terran (and terran mech) was very advantaged at some realistically rushable point in the late game, except maybe for HOTS after the SH nerf. Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles. Also, saying mech "should even exist" or "be used as a composition" or "stay niche play" doesn't make sense. The way terran and bio are designed, units will be bound to be used as anectodic additions, since bio play requires such a "by default" investment that you have very little freedom and variety concerning what other units you can build. Terran having a whole batch of units (hellbats cyclones banshees ravens thors for instance) be extremely rarely used in regular compositions is normal when you're playing bio. However if mech isn't played, we end up never really see these units get some use. We've seen a whole lot of different zerg ZvT compositions lately, and it's been very exciting. Pro players have shown hydra/lurkers, lings bane hydras, lings bane mutas, roach ravagers into ultra, roach ravagers infestor, etc. Terran being pigeonholed into MMMM+libs or MMM+tanks every single game in every single matchup is a problem for terran diversity. And i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV. Pretty spot on post imo. And it seems most Zerg arguments against Mech becoming viable are "because it shouldn't be viable" or "we don't want turtle mech." I think 99% people don't want turtle mech. But yes, Zerg has always had a ton of viable style, i play Zerg myself masters/gm level and there will be so many times i'm literally questioning out loud "what should i build now, there's so many different ways i can play this game out guys." | ||
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
On May 09 2017 11:46 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Isn't it impossible on the onset for traditional mech to be viable at the highest lvl of play in LOTV? The general idea of mech is to survive and get to a critical cost-efficient mass that can't be beat or that atleast trades very efficiently (you know like in TvP broodwar). A largely tank based army (tanks are the most cost-efficient factory unit ofc) doesn't even trade that well vs the armies the other races can put on the table in the same time. Or I'm mistaken and it does, but it doesn't matter because the other races have enough disposable income cause they got a lot of bases very quickly. it's also quite painful that it's still every bit as hard as it was in earlier iterations to remake tanks quickly enough. Like TLO said (I am paraphrasing) it's all about your early game harass actually causing a setback to the opponent to even stand a chance whilst playing mech. This fact means that LOTV is all about killing workers and that trading cost efficiently with army isn't all that important anymore (Mech's strong point).That's why the current mech we see is mostly a rush to 200/200 with hellbat thor and some tanks, and not a mech that predominately uses tanks. Instead of tanks people realize they need air units and mass air to beat air, if they want to play the long game. Literally everything would need a nerf to make traditional mech viable at the highest lvl of play. Like people have said it's not even swarmhosts that are nescessarily the bane of mech. Zerg can beat mech with whatever (Hydra/viper/brood/ultra/banes/corruptor basically a mix of everything). Protoss can beat it with blink timings, warp prism play, chargelot immortal archon and ofcourse carrier tempest (though mech'ers can transition to BC widow mines to deal with the protoss air switch). The only ways I see traditional mech being closer to viable is if the max army supply gets raised, if tanks get produced quicker or if mech actually gets a decent anti air ground unit. But I digress, I am of the opinion that mech will simply never work as well in LOTV as it did in slower iterations of Starcraft. It's interesting that you just mentioned "mech being closer to viable if the max army supply gets raised" because that can actually be done in a round about way by increasing the supply of most of the troublesome air units in the game. If carrier, tempest, raven, BC, broodlords, liberators had supply increases, intrinsically that means more supply of a player's army can be committed to ground and it could potentially change some unit relationships to where ground units like hydralisks could overwhelm a player attempting to mass BCS or liberators or ravens or what not in mega late game. A player could invest more of their supply into ground AA and not get punished for not going mass air themselves. | ||
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phodacbiet
United States1740 Posts
On May 09 2017 12:38 avilo wrote: Pretty spot on post imo. And it seems most Zerg arguments against Mech becoming viable are "because it shouldn't be viable" or "we don't want turtle mech." I think 99% people don't want turtle mech. But yes, Zerg has always had a ton of viable style, i play Zerg myself masters/gm level and there will be so many times i'm literally questioning out loud "what should i build now, there's so many different ways i can play this game out guys." I wouldn't call 4700 mmr gm level zerg... but I do agree that Zerg does have a lot more option compared to Terran. I think the reason why people are so against mech is because of the way sc2 is designed. Due to unit pathing, smart targeting tanks, and how the bases are located, it's pretty hard to break into a turtled Terran in the early/mid game as Zerg. Likewise on the Terran side, once they set up their turtle base, T literally can't move out until they have mass enough units. If only mobile/ positional mech was viable. At the moment, i feel like mech is really gimmicky. | ||
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Suchbalancemuchwow
76 Posts
On May 09 2017 12:43 avilo wrote: It's interesting that you just mentioned "mech being closer to viable if the max army supply gets raised" because that can actually be done in a round about way by increasing the supply of most of the troublesome air units in the game. If carrier, tempest, raven, BC, broodlords, liberators had supply increases, intrinsically that means more supply of a player's army can be committed to ground and it could potentially change some unit relationships to where ground units like hydralisks could overwhelm a player attempting to mass BCS or liberators or ravens or what not in mega late game. A player could invest more of their supply into ground AA and not get punished for not going mass air themselves. Yea that's definetly one way of making ground better vs air. It still wouldn't make mech much better vs the ground armies I described though. I also noticed that you didn't include the viper in your list of troublesome air units even though it is in my opinion the most blatant counter to mech (blinding cloud and abduct on 1 unit okay). Going with this line of thinking I'd personally like it the most if they upped the air supply a little whilst also opting for something like 220/220 so that it's still possible to make a decent amount of air units. Compared to sc1, sc2 armies aren't even that big to begin with. This is a problem in Lotv because the player that has map control often also has an economic advantage. What this means is that he doesn't have to be cost-efficient. If however the max army supply were bigger, one would have to trade better despite the better economy. (You can't remax as fast when you need to get a bigger army after all) But of course these are giant changes that would be a lot of fun to see in the PTR for once, even if just for the lulz. | ||
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hiroshOne
Poland425 Posts
Look at all this mech fanboys reaping off another balance topic. Guys, this game has more problems than "Terran not having unvincible a-move composition". All u want is EZ response to everything that opponent will throw at you at every stage of the game. Newsflash- every style or vomp has its weaknesses. Mech weakness is lack of mobility and lil bit vulnerability vs air comps. But to be honest Zerg rushing to air vs mech is pretty much dead if u are active with harras while building your beloved deatch ball. I know that u miss late HOTS where Mech was pretty much unstopabble vs Zerg. But it was cancer. And we don't want cancer back, do we? | ||
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Suchbalancemuchwow
76 Posts
On May 09 2017 14:15 hiroshOne wrote: Avilo...Saying that your Zerg play is even near of GM level is overstatement. Look at all this mech fanboys reaping off another balance topic. Guys, this game has more problems than "Terran not having unvincible a-move composition". All u want is EZ response to everything that opponent will throw at you at every stage of the game. Newsflash- every style or vomp has its weaknesses. Mech weakness is lack of mobility and lil bit vulnerability vs air comps. But to be honest Zerg rushing to air vs mech is pretty much dead if u are active with harras while building your beloved deatch ball. I know that u miss late HOTS where Mech was pretty much unstopabble vs Zerg. But it was cancer. And we don't want cancer back, do we? With all due respect, your reading comprehension needs some work. All these ''mech fanboys'' weren't just saying that they want mech to be the best ever, but we were also discussing the relevance of the way blizzard is balancing, the importance of air armies in sc2 and the questionable design of the swarmhost regardless of it's strength. Disregarding all that and coming in hot with a sloppily written Iel Avilo comment complete with dergatory prose speaks volumes about the worth of your comment. It's overall just a tragic thing to read. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
On May 09 2017 10:20 c0sm0naut wrote: yeah because its been discussed for 7 years and played for 0 blunder here are your options, choose wisely: Mech is not played because: a. terrans are simply not creative enough, and after 7 years of trying to figure it out and developers actively trying to make mech work, the only people terrans can blame are themselves. this is especially true at the highest echelons of play, where the least creative players of any sport or videogame are typically found, where mech play is not seen at all b. maybe, just fucking maybe, mech is a suboptimal strategy Woah hold on there sparky, mech is not played? Nobody plays mech? You're sure? Not seen at all? Whatsoever? HA good one, looks like we've reached the end of this thread's life cycle now, catch you all in a couple of weeks. | ||
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lolfail9001
Russian Federation40190 Posts
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jpg06051992
United States580 Posts
On May 10 2017 00:24 lolfail9001 wrote: You know what, i now want to see someone complain about pure bio's viability in Brood War. Just to make the picture complete. Need more even be said really? Why stop there though? Why not comeone complain about pure bio viability in BW, let's get some Zerg's complaining that Roach/Hydra CAN work against Terran but 90% of the time it's substandard. Then we can bring up some of the old but gold, "Gateway comps are bad" and then we will have every race complaining at the same time about the same stuff :D On a serious note, mech is just sub optimal, but it's pretty much the same 4 people complaining about mech not being able to be just as potent and just as go to of a style as Bio so meh, there is always optimal comps and not optimal, if you choose to utilize a weaker comp then at least be sure it's on the right maps in the right niche situations. Don't complain if you go blind mech because, "thats just what I want to do" and get owned by an opponent who is prepared. | ||
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Espartaquen
88 Posts
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Ransomstarcraft
75 Posts
On May 10 2017 02:32 jpg06051992 wrote: Need more even be said really? Why stop there though? Why not comeone complain about pure bio viability in BW, let's get some Zerg's complaining that Roach/Hydra CAN work against Terran but 90% of the time it's substandard. Then we can bring up some of the old but gold, "Gateway comps are bad" and then we will have every race complaining at the same time about the same stuff :D On a serious note, mech is just sub optimal, but it's pretty much the same 4 people complaining about mech not being able to be just as potent and just as go to of a style as Bio so meh, there is always optimal comps and not optimal, if you choose to utilize a weaker comp then at least be sure it's on the right maps in the right niche situations. Don't complain if you go blind mech because, "thats just what I want to do" and get owned by an opponent who is prepared. I don't know, it seems pretty reasonable to talk about the Thor and mech when the Thor is the main subject of this community feedback update. In the last month Blizzard has said they were "gathering feedback about Swarm hosts" in regard to mech, as well as the statement in the March 30 update that they "haven't seen as much mech play as they would like". When they ask about the Gateway or how underpowered Roach/Hydra is now, that will be a great opportunity to talk about those things. | ||
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wiNgiAN
17 Posts
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eviltomahawk
United States11135 Posts
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/20720316/call-to-action-may-9-balance-testing-5-9-2017 Thor -Thor armor was increased from 1 to 2. -Thor morph times reduced from 3.5 to 2.5. Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.5 to 0.25. Tempest -Kinetic Overload damage increased from 30 (+14 massive) to 30 (+22 massive). | ||
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c0sm0naut
United States1229 Posts
On May 09 2017 14:52 blunderfulguy wrote: Woah hold on there sparky, mech is not played? Nobody plays mech? You're sure? Not seen at all? Whatsoever? HA good one, looks like we've reached the end of this thread's life cycle now, catch you all in a couple of weeks. apetier post your posting rights should be rescinded, this is just argumentative, trolling garbage | ||
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c0sm0naut
United States1229 Posts
On May 10 2017 10:34 eviltomahawk wrote: Changes are up on the testing matchmaker http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/20720316/call-to-action-may-9-balance-testing-5-9-2017 that seems like a huge change to tempest but as i do not use the unit very much (just vs BL) i cant say how it would fare vs other massive | ||
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alfachemistry
1 Post
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StraKo
Germany96 Posts
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over? I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17677 Posts
On May 11 2017 01:39 StraKo wrote: I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore. if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases. vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool. i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank. i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins. | ||
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jpg06051992
United States580 Posts
On May 10 2017 03:04 Ransomstarcraft wrote: I don't know, it seems pretty reasonable to talk about the Thor and mech when the Thor is the main subject of this community feedback update. In the last month Blizzard has said they were "gathering feedback about Swarm hosts" in regard to mech, as well as the statement in the March 30 update that they "haven't seen as much mech play as they would like". When they ask about the Gateway or how underpowered Roach/Hydra is now, that will be a great opportunity to talk about those things. Talking about the Thor compared to the same people posting over and over again about how unviable mech is (even though Avilo has been playing it on ladder since forever and has always be GM so how under powered can it truly be?) is a world of difference. Don't even bring up the Host dude, it's OP vs. tanks and crap vs. everything else (mostly), it is a unit that is so terribly designed that its been overhauled, buffed, nerfed, and still is crap. I want it discarded from the Swarm immediately. The Swarm Host is a flawless example of a failed pet project from David Kim, instead of just manning up and giving it the Warhound treatment, he found it better to give it every change under the sun even though the role it was supposed to fill has long since been bastardized into oblivion. | ||
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